Schools Debate How to Stem ‘Hate Speech’ : Campuses: Such language is difficult to define and hard to prosecute. Officials attempt to write policies that will not thwart 1st Amendment protections.

Educators told a county panel Monday that hateful language on college campuses remains a serious problem that often intimidates women and minorities, but it is difficult to enact sanctions against it because of 1st Amendment protections. Although hate crimes can be readily identified and their perpetrators punished, “hate speech” is difficult to define and goes largely unreported on college and high school campuses, representatives of USC, UCLA, Occidental College and Cal State Northridge said.

The County Commission for Women, in an effort to develop a policy statement that addresses verbal attacks based on race, religion or gender, called on representatives from the four universities to explain the reporting and discipline process for hate crimes and “hate-speech” incidents.

The education committee of the 15-member commission became particularly interested in hate-speech policies at county schools after receiving numerous anecdotal complaints from college women who said they were victims of offensive gender-based language.

Although the commission has no enforcement power over universities or other schools, members said their goal is to increase awareness among educators and students that verbal expressions of hatred against women and minorities are on the rise and should not be tolerated.

“I think that one thing April 29 taught us is that hate speech cannot be swept under the rug,” said Commissioner Theresa Montano, referring to the first day of the Los Angeles riots. “We have to deal with hate speech because it can turn into hate violence.”

Commission members said they hope to encourage campus administrators to keep statistics on hate speech complaints so educational programs can be developed to address the issue.

The panel of educators agreed that offensive language can intimidate and create a hostile environment for the targeted students, but enacting codes against it is a controversial legal and political issue at their campuses and others throughout the nation.

Critics of such codes say such codes can lead to the repression of ideas and can be an unconstitutional limit on free speech.

“If someone utters a racial epithet, what do you do?” said Allen Yarnell, an assistant vice chancellor at UCLA. “It’s hateful and odious but it’s not violating any law.”

He said the University of California system has adopted a “fighting words” code in which a student can be disciplined for hateful language that injures or intimidates students. But the code is written in such a way that makes it difficult to punish the perpetrator.

A speech code was rejected last year by the Cal State Northridge Faculty Senate. USC adopted a symbolic statement with no enforcement provision and Occidental College has no code.

Over the next few months, commission members intend to formulate a series of recommendations on how college and high school educators can address hate speech complaints.

In a related issue, the panel is likely to approve a recommendation to state legal officials that rape be statistically included by law enforcement agencies as a hate crime against women.